Build-A-Business is a transmedia storytelling experience designed to teach high school students the fundamentals of entrepreneurship in a way that is engaging, relatable, and emotionally resonant. Created as part of the “Visual Communications: Comics to Transmedia” course at the University of Washington under the guidance of faculty advisor Rob Salkowitz, this project combines narrative storytelling with interactive digital media. The goal is to empower students—especially those who may not be college-bound—with the skills, confidence, and inspiration to explore their own entrepreneurial journeys.
What is Build-A-Business?
A transmedia experience for high school students to learn about entrepreneurship.
With Build-A-Business, high school students get a complete picture of what building a business looks like. I use multiple touch points for students to engage with the story and gain hands-on skills for building a business.
Why Build-A-Business?
• 1 in 3 recent high school grads do not want to pursue a college education (highest ever ratio)
• The United Nations has designated Quality Education as one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
• Small Businesses create 2/3 of the new jobs since 2020
The Transmedia Experience
Transmedia is the use of multiple media to tell a story. It is usually seeded in one primary media (a web novel in this case), and can be explored through different mediums which add to the story and the experience. I use this tool to give a 360° immersion for high school students to learn about building their own entrepreneurial ventures.
User Journey in 6 Steps
Here is the journey a user will take to interact with the transmedia campaign:
The Plot
Build-A-Business follows the story of Rani, a 45 year old immigrant mom who wants to start a business and her high school child Aditi, who has a tumultuous relationship with her mom. As the story evolves, both mother and daughter find ways to bridge the generational trauma gap and build something beautiful that you can’t help but root for!
Theme
Meet the Characters
These are the characters you will laugh and cry with, cheer for and come to care for.
Rani Shah
Rani is a first-generation immigrant to the United States. She is the operational genius behind her family’s success, but struggles to find purpose for her own life. She has always been someone’s plus one in life, and now she wants to become independent and show the world her true capabilities.
Aditi Shah
Aditi is the daughter of immigrant parents. She has heard all the stories of sacrifice from her parents, but struggles to find an identity of her own. She feels lost in trying to understand what she wants to do in life, keep up with what her friends are doing on social media and her emotional struggles as she grows during her teenage years.
Rahul Shah
Rahul is an engineer in one of Seattle’s big tech firms. He put himself through school by working 2 jobs and immigrated to the US by sheer hardwork. He never takes sick days, and feels the alpha male responsibility of taking care of his family. He lacks emotional development and feels disconnected with his family though he loves them very much.
Carol Gonzales
Carol is an immigrant high school english teacher in Seattle. She is by far the favorite and the most popular teacher in school due to her empathy, energy, and love for her students. She believes in giving second chances to everyone, and is an instrumental figure in the student affairs department of the school.
Locations
Both locations of the Garage and the High School will be set in the city of Seattle, providing real-world authenticity to the stories.
Garage
The house garage will serve as Rani’s warehouse, packaging and shipping venture and the backdrop for Anita’s TikTok videos
High School
The High School will serve as the backdrop for the TikTok videos, and the pitch competition
Web Novel Overview
The web novel will follow the story of Rani the homemaker as she creates her business of high-quality, low-cost clothing imported from India. She starts it out as a garage sale, but quickly realises that there is a lot of market need for this and launches a bigger business.
The use of a web comic novel will allow students to explore their imagination, have a lower production cost and be easier to read than a 300 page business book.
TikTok Overview
The Gen Z Aditi and the target audience for this project is most active on TikTok. The blog style videos will make a relatable story, have a very low production cost and reach beyond the city to audiences around the country.
The short form video will be produced with a real high-school student, making it highly relatable for high-schoolers, be quick in turn-around-time and hold the attention of students in the 30-second video format with ease
Website Overview
The website is a great tool for showcasing the continuous iterative process of entrepreneurship. As the story and the business evolves, the website will be a landmark for all the growth in the story, leading to an informative piece of media. The blog will act as a resource guide for starting your own business.
Pitch Competition Overview
The Pitch Competition will be the culmination of the Transmedia Project. High School students from around the country can send in their submissions for the pitch made using the resources on the website. The competition itself will be held in the High School Gym where students can make their pitch to the angel investors panel, leading to high engagement and real-world implementation of the students’ learnings.
Timeline
The east-coast style production has to follow the detailed timeline for flawless execution.
Production Costs
Total Cost : $105500 | Fundraising Platform: Kickstarter
Estimated Impact
This Transmedia Project aims to create real-world impact by increasing entrepreneurship education, creating grassroots change in the way multimedia teaching is done in high school for college level skills and education and develop necessary skills for high schoolers to build their own businesses.
Future Roadmap
The immediate future plan is to publish the serialized web novel into a graphic novel for distribution through schools and libraries.
For the longer term, I want to build the pitch competitions in every major city of the country like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Dallas. I also want to reproduce them in foreign language translations in India, Mexico, South Korea, Japan and South Africa to begin with. Chic Clothing (the website and the business that Rani builds) would become a real-life clothing business and publish a follow up story on Aditi’s entrepreneurial journey after she graduates high school.
Accolades
The project won the Screen Summit Strategy Award on 31st May 2024, bestowed by Communication Leadership at the University of Washington
Richa Nevatia 